If you're short of time, here's how to get some back

Shannon O'Brien

Monday

Jan 25, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 25, 2010 at 8:41 PM

The 21st century finds us as busy as ever; people log many hours at work, and often take work home with them. And when they get home, there may be more tasks associated with the house or the family that need to be handled.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "It's not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is what are we busy about?"

The 21st century finds us as busy as ever; people log many hours at work, and often take work home with them. And when they get home, there may be more tasks associated with the house or the family that need to be handled.

Thayer resident Shannon Higgins, a working, married mother of a 5-year-old boy and an 18-month-old girl, knows what it's like to feel time hurtle by and not have enough hours in the day to do all a person would like to do.

However, she's made it a point to carve out some time in her schedule for those people and activities she doesn't want to neglect.

That's the advice life coaches give to clients who are looking for ways to get back more of their free time.

Our disappearing and misused minutes haven't gone unnoticed. In fact, Monday was the first day of National Take Back Your Time week.

Jill Kennedy-Broughton, a certified life coach in Springfield, wrote in an e-mail that taking back your time is all about priorities.

She says it's crucial to determine what is most important to a person, and not just what that person says is important: "There is a big difference between the two, and it is clearly reflected in the way they live their life out."

If a person claims family time is important, but then spends all his or her free time working, golfing or shopping, actions speak louder than words – bringing into question whether family time is honestly what's important.

Like sand through an hourglass

Kennedy-Broughton says she encourages her clients to find "non-negotiables." These are things her clients "absolutely cannot do without."

She says that what they choose has to do with values. "Many people are confused or uncertain about what they truly value because they have never taken the time to really think about it that much," she says. "However, knowing what your core values are is crucial to having a fulfilling life."

Kennedy-Broughton uses a mental image to help her clients picture time.

"I encourage them to think of their calendar as a jar. Sometimes I'll even have them draw a big jar," she says.

She tells her clients to fill the "jar" with the non-negotiables first – those things they can't do without. Those are represented by boulders and take up the most space.

Then come "rocks," the things that are important, but not as important as the non-negotiables. And, lastly, they fill the jar with sand – all that stuff that fills up life and takes away time, but that most people can live without.

"If a person fills their calendar this way and sticks to it, they won't be saying they need more time," Kennedy-Broughton says. "They may have to sacrifice one thing to gain the most important ... but it will be the most fulfilling choice if it is one of their true core values."

Higgins and her husband, Jim, schedule a date night once a month. They have friends – a married couple with their own children – who watch the kids, so Shannon and Jim can go out by themselves. They return the favor by watching their friends' kids on a different weekend.

Higgins also enjoys exercising, so she and her husband have arranged a schedule that allows each of them to visit the gym on a regular basis by alternating the days they go.

Sundays are devoted to church and family time.

"I feel like I do a pretty good job of time management," Higgins said. "Sometimes I wish it were dispersed differently."

But at the Higgins home, at least one point is non-negotiable: "Family is first," she said.

Demands on your time

Sometimes, it's OK to say no.

Betsy Sobiech, a program coach with Tiara: Exceptional Women's Coaching in Chicago, says you "always have the ability to say yes, no or renegotiate" when someone requests your time or energy.

Sobiech says saying no to a request you're unable or unwilling to tackle may actually help build your reputation because it shows that you honor your boundaries and you're aware of your limits. It also implies that when you say yes to a request, you mean yes and you're not taking on something you can't handle or aren't interested in simply because someone asked you.

Renegotiating requests means taking the request and determining what you can give to it.

For example, if you're asked to be at an event all day, but you know you can't spend that amount of time there, offer to be there for a few hours. Or decline the request, but ask to be marked down for the next event where help will be needed.

"De-cluttering is something that benefits everybody," Sobiech says. "If you flip it around, you don't want people to volunteer for your committee or say yes to your dinner party who don't really want to be there."

Gains and drains

Kennedy-Broughton also suggests taking a look at the people and events that give you energy or drain you of energy.

She said she thinks "we take our time and our life back when we start making an actual list of what these energy drainers and gainers are and then intentionally begin to lessen the time we give to the drainers and increase the time we give to the gainers."

She acknowledges that "we are all living real life," and there is only so much a person can control. But this makes it all the more important to pay attention to those things you can control, and to pay attention to how you spend time, and with whom.

"It's important to note that this is not about being selfish. We cannot be good for much if we are drained low," Kennedy-Broughton said.

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